“ACORN and the Firestorm” is set to premiere this weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival, and looks to be a contender in this year’s Best Documentary Feature race. The film, co-directed by Reuben Atlas and Sam Pollard, will chronicle the rise and fall of the (now controversial) Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Though the height of ACORN’s popularity was during the 2008 election, the documentary is said to foreshadow our current political climate.
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Click beyond the jump to learn more about “ACORN and the Firestorm

As highlighted in the video (via The Hollywood Reporter), ACORN became a trigger word during the 2008 election, even being brought up as an attack against then Senator Obama during the campaign. For those not familiar with the group, the documentary looks to be a good resource for all things ACORN. As to how it relates to today, at the time Breitbart was a brand new media outlet and they took on the task of taking down ACORN. Co-director Reuben Atlas said the following about that connection,
​“One thing I could never have guessed is that the ACORN story would very specifically foreshadow so much of our political present...For one, when Andrew Breitbart died, Steve Bannon took over Breitbart News and was very helpful to Donald Trump’s campaign and — at least for now — is his colleague in the White House.”

Whether it be “Citezenfour” or last year’s “13th,” documentaries have not only been well-made productions that teach audiences about a subject, they have become a method of activism themselves. Atlas stated that he did not want the documentary to demonize anyone on either side, but their goal was to chronicle the journey and present what happened. Our current political climate is a full pendulum swing in the other direction since that 2008 election, so we can expect the documentary to give some striking commentary for today.

Were you familiar with everything surrounding ACORN? Are you looking forward to the documentary? Let us know in the comments below!

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